fotavtryck

It is so hard to find your way around here without guide. I mean, its possible but it takes time. We have one map we bought from a map shop which shows the whole Laos, and we also have a travel map we got from one of the guides in the motorbike shop. The same citys on the maps have different names. But thats not the most confusing. You read different names on the map, but when you actually arrive to the place, its not even the same name on the village. And then when you are in the village, you are now really confused cuz its three different spellings, but similar pronounsiations, so you ask someone in three similar but with a bit different pronounsiation if you are in the right place, but they just stare at you like you are from the other side of the earth, which you are but thats not the point, and then they say that they dont know.

And its funny. When you show people here, or people from Thailand the same, a map over the town you are in and you ask them how to get to a special place. They allways take the map. Turn it around, study it really hard, thinks about it, call in their friends for help and suddenly you have five people studdying the map. And they all look like they have no idea on where they are ore how their town actually look. But they allways give you an answer, but you cant count on it to be the right way. You have to ask at least 5 people and go for the average. You got to love these people. :)

Today we drove, and we drove and we drove. Andrew tried to drive as fast as possible with two people and a backpack so we wouldnt arrive too late to Pakse. It was maybe 400km and it took around 7 hours, with a couple of stops for gas and food. The travel today was not really beautiful, but it was fast and furious !!